“I’ve been on social media for years,” says lifestyle influencer Lucy Williams, “but I really didn’t want an ‘Instagram’ house — it needed to feel homely.”
And yet, with her follower count edging 800,000 across two accounts — a general one and a dedicated interiors account (@lucywilliamshome) started when she bought and began renovating her house in 2020 — what may be homely for Williams is pretty much guaranteed to become a grid-worthy trend before long.
Williams, who started her career in fashion magazines before turning to blogging and brand consultancy full time, including a best-selling jewellery collection with Missoma, grew up in a farmhouse in the Shropshire countryside.
It was, she says “the sort of place where the doors were open, everyone was welcome, old furniture, dog hair everywhere”.
Though the aesthetic of the Victorian terraced house near Shepherd’s Bush she shares with husband Ruaraidh and rescue dog Finn is very different to a traditional English farmhouse, it shares the same layered, welcoming, feet-up vibes, from the squashy, gingerbread-coloured Maker & Son sofa in the living room (chosen to disguise Finn’s matching brown dog hair) to the deep kitchen window seat, made for curling up with a book and coffee — if you can persuade the dog to budge over.
This comfortable theme continues in the south-facing back garden, landscaped with the help of Butter Wakefield, where tumbling honeysuckle and jasmine give the patio seating area an inviting scent.
Awash with Greco-Welsh tones
The three-bedroom house felt like a bit of a renovation “unicorn” when they found it, says Williams. It had good bones, had been well looked after under its previous 40-year ownership, but was in need of updating throughout: “I knew I wanted a project and a lot of [houses] we saw were white, shiny and redone.”
The biggest task was the kitchen extension, where she worked with architects Flower Michelin to push into the garden, with a build-out above to create a “tiny pod” of a fourth bedroom.
While in London one side return can look much like another, Williams swerved bifolds for elegant sky blue French doors and a cushioned window seat framed inside with white, roughly plastered, Mediterranean-inspired nooks, where she displays books, vases and pieces picked up on her travels — including a ceramic horse found on the Greek island of Patmos (“I can’t come back from Greece without something ceramic,” she says).
Williams’s love of Greece — she married Ruaraidh on Andros in 2022 and has just returned from a three week island-hopping trip there — influenced the design of her kitchen, with white open shelving, touches of blue and white in the ceramics, and cushions and cabinetry painted in a summery Paper and Paints sky blue.
Under the kitchen table is the Dunes flatweave rug she designed in a recent collaboration with Pelican House, the blues and browns inspired this time by summers spent in Abersoch on the Welsh coast (she is now working on a new collection of sister rugs in different colourways.)
The art of ‘doing vintage’
There are antique and vintage finds all over the house, from the quirky Henning Kjaernulf kitchen chairs (found on Vinterior) to a living room hearth stool with upholstered legs.
“There are so many great, small antique and vintage dealers on Instagram now,” says Williams, though she loves hunting for pieces at Chiswick Antique and Vintage Market (the second Sunday of every month), The Old Cinema in Chiswick, where she found the beloved Gio Ponti desk which sits in the small middle sitting room off the kitchen, or at Quindry and Nimmo & Spooner, both on Lillie Road.
She once spent two hours at Kempton Market looking for the perfect antique handles to fit a pair of reclaimed doors into the living room: “Honestly,” she rolls her eyes. “Though I’m quite pleased with them.”
The walls are also covered with original art, much of it vintage or found on websites like Wondering People, which showcases pieces by new, emerging artists.
A new favourite on her kitchen wall is a giant delphinium painting by Haidee Becker — “I didn’t know I needed a giant purple painting in my life until I saw it,” she says — while above the dining table is a photograph of a lamb by Johno Mellish.
Williams thinks original art, where budget allows, is more impactful than a print. “I’m a big believer in sometimes spending more money on the frame than the picture,” she adds.
“I bought an old piece of quilting from a car boot sale once and framed it — I think the actual quilting cost £10.”
In the front living room her love of blue continues with walls, ceiling and woodwork drenched in Farrow & Ball’s archive colour Yonder, with long curtains to match: “My childhood bedroom was blue — I think the right shade can be cosy.”
Williams admires designers like Beata Heuman, whose unexpected colour combinations “blend Scandinavian style with English eccentricity”, and was also inspired by a visit to the Copenhagen house of Ganni founders Ditte and Nicolaj Reffstrup: “They do colour in a really fun but also grown-up way,” she says.
This approach is evident in her choice of hallway colours — walls in Mylands Soho Pink (which feels closer to a light mauve) and Papers and Paints Porphyry Red gloss on the stairs.
There is more red in the downstairs loo off the hall, which is wallpapered with Howe’s Knurl Paper in Brick, and upstairs in her newly designed study, which features a pull-out desk painted in Hickory by Rose Uniacke.
Nineties nostalgia, so now
Williams has a real weakness for books on 1990s decoration. “It’s the era that interiors forgot for lots of people, but maybe [I love it] because it feels very nostalgic to me,” she says.
“For the past 20 years, everyone was like, let’s rip it all out, but now things like stainless steel kitchens are being put back in.”
There are nods to her love of the 1990s in her use of pine cladding in the upstairs bathroom, her cream bedroom carpet and the curling black cast iron Stride & Co stool in her living room.
Williams thinks that, much like her approach to fashion, her interiors preferences are down to what feels right rather than a set look or trend.
“Sometimes I’ll see a look I love on someone, but when I put it on me it just doesn’t feel right. I think that’s the same with a home — I can walk into people’s houses that are these perfect, minimal modern spaces I think are heaven.
“But I know I couldn’t live like that,” she adds with a laugh. “I’m too messy, I would ruin the whole thing straight away.”
